Thesis: To consider what the chance intersection of ideal beauty and intellectual confusion would mean in determining the fate of Earth. Phase 1: While touring San Francisco, I stayed at the Sir Francis Drake. The bartenders were adequate. Phase 2: I began a blog. I learned romance might exist, but depends upon whether a man and a woman can tread the maze individually and reach its center at the exact same instant in time. Phase 3: The center comes and goes as if it were a mirage.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wingsWell I started out down a dirty roadStarted out all aloneAnd the sun went down as I crossed the hillAnd the town lit up, the world got stillI'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wingsComing down is the hardest thingWell the good ol' days may not returnAnd the rocks might melt and the sea may burnI'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wingsComing down is the hardest thingWell some say life will beat you downBreak your heart, steal your crownSo I've started out, for God knows whereI guess I'll know when I get thereI'm learning to fly, around the clouds,But what goes up must come downI'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wingsComing down is the hardest thing

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Playwright Arthur Miller, toward the center wearing the tuxedo, is on stage with the cast members of a 1999 revival of his play, "Death of a Salesman," at the Eugene O'Neill Theater. The play opened on Broadway in 1949, and has been a fixture in American theater since that time. Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his drama.Flexible, imaginative & innovative = ??I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?Willy Lomanin Arthur Miller's"Death of a Salesman"

My resume always has proclaimed me to be flexible, imaginative and innovative, which is to say without actually saying it, unorthodox. How much that might be true is in the eye of the beholder.Once upon a time, my unorthodox journalistic existence included coordinating production of a weekly arts and entertainment section. I wrote a bit, but mostly assigned newspaper staff members and free lance writers, photographers and artists to produce elements such as reviews and critiques of books, motion pictures, plays, concerts and recordings, as well as interviews with the authors, artists and performers who created these works. Then, it became my task to turn these items into a page or two or three of dazzling data that would attract readers and draw their applause and cries of encore.In deference to full disclosure, another of my weekly tasks was to coordinate production of a weekly outdoors section, which centered on hunting and fishing. At times, in addition to being flexible, imaginative and innovative, I also have been my own strange bedfellow. In any event …. to continue:

A few posts on other blogs, in addition to some recent events in my personal life, have gotten me to thinking about books, films, the theater, music and the role of the critic in examining these phenomena.

Among the gimmicks my innovative soul created was to assign three individuals, when it was feasible, to review and critique the same book or film or stage production or concert. They were, of course, pledged not to discuss their assessment until their finished work had been turned in to me.To add still another aspect to this assignment, the three individuals would come from varying backgrounds. For instance, those whose task it was to review a college/university stage production might include a student from the university; a middle-aged woman who was a homemaker and mother first and a writer second, and who had community theater experience; and a man who ordinarily covered sports and had never been to a live theater production in his life.It was educational and a great deal of fun to read their finished products -- at least, I thought so.On one occasion, the newspaper received a letter from a person who could only be described as angry with my style of assigning reviewers. In brief, the letter writer complained that after reading three very disparate reviews of a college production of Arthur Miller's masterpiece, "Death of a Salesman," he was unable to decide if he wanted to attend the performance himself or not.

"What are you trying to do, confuse the reader?" he chided. "At that, you have certainly succeeded. I don't know which reviewer to believe."

So much for flexible, imaginative and innovative ....

A few words in passing about ArthurWhile this post is not about Arthur Miller or "Death of a Salesman" per se, it would be a sin not to mention a bit more about him after having spoken his name. As one journalist put it, "Arthur Miller, one of the great American playwrights, whose work exposed the flaws in the fabric of the American dream .... grappled with the weightiest matters of social conscience in his plays. They often reflected or reinterpreted the stormy and very public elements of his own life, including his brief marriage to Marilyn Monroe and his staunch refusal to cooperate with the red-baiting House Committee on Un-American Activities."

"Death of a Salesman," a landmark of 20th-century drama, opened on Broadway in 1949, and won Miller a Pulitzer Prize. The play centers on Willy Loman, a 63-year-old salesman and an archetypal character representing the failed American dream. It has been made into films and television productions, and performed live on stage by hundreds (perhaps thousands) of high school, college and community theater groups. It has been translated into a couple of dozen languages. Willy, incidentally, kills himself at the end of the story, ostensibly to obtain life insurance money as a means to provide for his family.Some of Miller's other plays included "The Crucible," a 1953 production about the Salem witch trials, and "A View From the Bridge," a 1955 drama of obsession and betrayal, both of which also would ultimately take their place as popular classics of the international stage.Miller wrote other media, as well. Perhaps most notably, he supplied the screenplay for "The Misfits," a 1961 movie directed by John Huston and starring Monroe, to whom he was married at the time. He also wrote essays, short stories and a 1987 autobiography, "Timebends: A Life." Read it, and very possibly you will learn from it.A few of Miller's attributes (flaws, possibly, depending upon one's world view):He held that every man is responsible for his and for his neighbor's actions.He believed every play should teach a lesson and make a thematic point. He imagined that with the possible exception of a doctor saving a life, writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human being could do.He despised critics. He once dismissed them as "people who can't sing or dance .... I don't know a critic who penetrates the center of anything."Right on, Art ....

And then, there was she. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe were married four years, proving, in my critical analysis of life itself, that all things are possible. During their marriage, Miller wrote the screenplay for the film, "The Misfits," which featured Monroe. At this endeavor, the innate critic within me pronounces her performance as stellar.

Something special ....

Sort of About Me

Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English (= literature) and history (= reality). Master of Arts in literature. Once upon a time, U.S. Marine Corps = Semper Fidelis. These things pretty much explain everything there is to know about me.
Other than that, ask, if you actually are curious .... I like to drift where the current takes me within this endless sea of blogs, read what others write in their blogs, observe, learn, question and, hopefully, understand, while offering a few comments of my own along the way .... by the way, the photo of me actually is me .... was me .... will be me .... hmmmm ....

Romance, from Fram

I discoveredRomance might yet exist,but it depends uponwhether a manand a womancan tread the maze,individually,and reach its centerat the same momentin time.

The Actual Instant of Love, from Fram

I am a jealous guy, of the sort John Lennon sang about. Any man who says he is not a jealous guy either has no genuine depth of feelings for the woman he is saying it about or is a liar. I can remember very distinctly, for example, when my feelings for my wife vanished. It happened in an instant. When love vanished, so did jealousy.

Actual love happens in an instant, I believe, although it does not always seem to be that way. I am not talking about "love at first sight," but, rather, "love at first instant." This means two people might have known each other for weeks, even for years, before the "instant" occurs. It comes with a single sentence spoken by one, or a single action taken by one, that strikes the other like lightning.

Affection grows; love is born. Love also disappears in an instant, I believe, although it does not always seem to happen that way. Incidental to my point, I do not believe in "love at first sight." That is no more than simple, physical or emotional attraction, which is the cause of countless and never-ending problems.

Happiness is momentary, from Fram

When I was age eighteen, a wise, old man of twenty-six told me that happiness is a momentary thing. It might last for minutes or days or weeks or, sometimes, even for a few years. But, like life itself, happiness is a transitory thing and, like fate, it is capricious. At some point along the road, I came to realize this wise, old man had been right.

The Three Sorts of Friends ....

Though friendships differ endless in degree,The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three.Acquaintance many, and Conquaintance few;But for Inquaintance I know only two --The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

Time retains ....

Time retainsits sacred right to meddlein each earthly affair.Still, time's unbounded powerthat makes a mountain crumble,moves seas, rotates a star,won't be enough to tearlovers apart: they aretoo naked, too embraced,too much like timid sparrows.

Old age is, in my book,the price that felons pay,so don't whine that it's steep:you'll stay young if you're good.Suffering doesn't insult the body.Death? It comes in your sleep,exactly as it should.

When it comes, you'll be dreamingthat you don't need to breathe;that breathless silence isthe music of the darkand it's part of the rhythmto vanish like a spark.

Yesterday is History ....

Yesterday is mystery --Where it is TodayWhile we shrewdly speculateFlutter both away.

Emily Dickinsonpoet"Yesterday is History"

Never the answers

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

Will Duranthistorian, philosopher, teacher

The equality of man

Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.

Thomas Jeffersonpresident, patriot, free thinker

The audience

Better to write for yourselfand have no publicthan to writefor the publicand have no self.

Cyril Connollywriter, editor, literary critic

I am free

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.Robert Heinleinscience fiction writerphilosopher

Marine Corps Forever, from Fram

To all Marines, those among the dead, those who still live, those yet to be born: Semper Fidelis, to the end of time ....

Have gun .... will travel

Once upon a time: "She said, There is no reason ...."

Time & again ....

Time .... he's waiting in the wings .... he speaks of senseless things .... but, if you could heal a broken heart, wouldn't time be out to charm you?

Voluspo 28-29

Alone I sat when the Old One sought me .... The terror of gods, and gazed in mine eyes .... "What hast thou to ask? why comest thou hither? .... Othin, I know where thine eye is hidden" .... Deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir .... Mead from the pledge of Othin each morn .... Does Mimir drink: would you know yet more? ....

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Magic Girl from Fram

I look at her face, I stare into her eyes.She is there yet, the girl from long ago.Her smile has dimmed only a slight degree,but her face shows scars from tears,a lonely expression there for all to see.

I sense her there, the girl from long ago,I know she is she, and once she was for me,but how do I know what is left inside her?Is she magic still, or has life changed her?Can a woman return, a magic girl to be?